Willful Ignorance-- A Problem For Representative Democracy?

On Wednesday, Ken pointed out that more Louisiana Republicans blame Obama for the poor response to Hurricane Katrina than blame George W. Bush, 29-28%-- with another 44% "unsure." Perhaps most Louisiana Republicans didn't recall that they had never heard of Barack Obama in 2005 when Katrina struck. At the time he had been a U.S. senator for a few months. "Oh my God," I thought when I heard about this; "are these people voting? No wonder David Vitter was reelected!" But, it's hardly just Louisiana Republicans-- even if Louisiana does have the worst education results of any of the 50 states. "Seven in 10 Americans believed that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. One in five thought that Obama was Muslim. In another famous poll, Americans were three times more likely to be able to name two of the seven dwarfs than two Supreme Court justices." And they can all vote... and buy automatic weapons. As Ken points out, "the insanification and imbecilization of the American public, a state actively pursued by right-wing strategists for decades, has reached the point where a scarifyingly large sector of the electorate has no conception of what a 'fact' is-- they truly believe that 'reality' is whatever the hell bizarre notions lodge in their heads... As I've pointed out here a number of times, the genius of so-called 'reality TV' is that it plays on the fatigue, or perhaps outright animosity, that a large segment of the public has developed toward, er, real reality, and their eager flight into what I like to call 'reality substitute,' based on the premise that reality is now defined as whatever it makes me feel best to believe. Obama was born in Kenya and has engaged in a lifelong conspiracy joined by who knows how many people to conceal it? I believe it, and it makes my blood boil."

Ken didn't specifically get into what this kind of willful ignorance says about the efficacy of democracy, but the implication that it isn't something that we can avoid thinking about was all over his post. The NY Times is urging Congress to get back to Washington to debate the Syrian crisis before Obama bombs the place. Presumably, among those debaters would be Steve Scalise, Lord Boustany, John Fleming, Rodney Alexander and Bill Cassidy, the 5 House Republicans from Louisiana. Is there any reason to assume they are less ignorant than the people who elected them? Not that I've seen. Boustany, for example, may be best known for an endless series of medical malpractice suits but he is also the congressman who bought a lordship title for himself and his wife online (for $18,500). And Congress hasn't exactly been a deliberative body in the last few years, has it?



The ruling class just watched that in Britain and did not like what they saw-- not one bit. David Cameron called Parliament together to vote on his plans to join Obama in an attack on Syria and... suddenly he had his legs cut out from under him-- by his own backbenchers. Always the spokesvehicle for the ruling elites of the world, The Economist was apoplectic. They called the vote "shocking and shaming."

Many deserve blame for the catastrophe. Some attaches to David Cameron. A parliamentary vote on a decision to go to war that is likely to entail the commitment of significant forces for a sustained period might be considered a necessity. In this instance, in which Britain would have played a very minor supporting role in a punitive action of limited duration that was most unlikely to put anyone from Britain’s armed forces in harm’s way, it was not. Far from the first time, Mr Cameron complacently misread the mood of his rebellion-prone party, a party which contains a sizable minority that seems content to heap humiliation on his head regardless of the electoral consequences and regardless of the standing of Britain’s prime minister in the world.

Nor did Mr Cameron adequately prepare the ground for yesterday’s debate. He could and should have done more to show why any parallels between what he was proposing and Tony Blair’s use of the “dodgy dossier” to take Britain to war in Iraq were wholly and contemptibly specious. In his desire not to overcook the evidence of the Assad regime’s systematic and large-scale use of internationally-banned nerve agents, he admitted that there was not “100% proof." He could, however, have shown that the case against Mr Assad was beyond all reasonable doubt-- the standard required for a conviction in a court of law. It was also a mistake to allow the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, to wind the debate up rather than his foreign secretary, William Hague. Arguments fall apart in Mr Clegg’s hands like sodden cardboard, whereas Mr Hague is probably Westminster’s best debater. It is also not clear why he threw the towel in so completely and immediately after the votes had been counted. There was still time and opportunity to change minds before a second vote which was scheduled for early next week.

But if Mr Cameron got some things wrong, at least he was trying to do the right thing: support Britain’s most important ally in an effort to show an evil dictator that he cannot continue to use the vilest weapons against his own people with utter impunity. Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, by contrast, did not seem to know what he was doing other than show he was not Tony Blair, which most people had already realised. Mr Miliband’s claim to require more evidence and to allow the UN weapons inspectors to complete their report, may have sounded reasonable to many people, but in reality was nothing more than a weaselly attempt to avoid taking sides either for or against military action. Given his supreme distaste for military intervention in Syria, nobody would be happier than Barack Obama if holes could easily be picked in the evidence. Mr Miliband’s depiction of Mr Cameron (and implicitly, Mr Obama) rushing to war without adhering to proper process was embarrassingly wide of the mark. Sadly, not one of his MPs had the guts to get up and say so (indeed some found his position distastefully hawkish).

Mr Miliband at least has the excuse of being leader of the opposition. He would have been right to question the government closely on the purpose and possible consequences of military action. He would also have been entitled to have withheld support if the government’s intended course of action appeared reckless or illegal, but he made the case for neither. Those who deserve the greatest opprobrium are the 30 Tory MPs who voted against their prime minister and a still larger group (including, it is said, more than one cabinet minister) who signalled only reluctant support for Mr Cameron. Increasingly, there is a tendency within the Conservative Party that takes such a narrow, Poujadist (or should that be Farageist?) view of national interest that it behaves as if Britain should cease to have any serious engagement with the outside world. It was no coincidence that some of the rebels are also among the party’s most Europhobic headbangers. They seem to care as little for the Atlantic partnership and NATO as they do for the European Union. They claim to be representing popular opinion, which is indeed weary of foreign wars and sceptical about the reasons for Britain’s involvement in them. But not even populist Tories should want foreign policy to be determined by opinion polls.

The only people who should celebrate yesterday’s vote are Bashar Assad and Vladimir Putin. Britain’s failure to stand by its allies and stand up to tyranny has diminished it in the eyes of the world.

The Economist, of course, would rather see Britain ignore representative democracy and turn towards authoritarian tyranny than not rush off willy nilly into a war with unknowable consequences. I bet they flipped out when Obama announced he'd be going to Congress on Saturday afternoon. Still, a bunch of Louisiana Republicans are no less trustworthy to make the decision than the political and social elites from the claustrophobic little world that is the transnational Economist.

Oh... and willful ignorance isn't just a problem among Republicans in the Old Confederacy. Try asking relatively well-educated and enlightened New Jersey voters about their looming gubernatorial election. They don't seem to be prepared to allow any facts to get in the way of their decision-making.